nformation society". In 2100, 99% of works might be
governed by copyright, with a meager 1% for public domain.

In the "Copyright HowTo" section of its website, Project Gutenberg
explains how to confirm the public domain status of books according to
U.S. copyright laws. Here is a summary: (a) Works published before 1923
entered the public domain no later than 75 years from the copyright
date: all these works belong to public domain; (b) Works published
between 1923 and 1977 retain copyright for 95 years: no such works will
enter the public domain until 2019; (c) Works created from 1978 on
enter the public domain 70 years after the death of the author if the
author is a natural person: nothing will enter the public domain until
2049; (d) Works created from 1978 on enter the public domain 95 years
after publication or 120 years after creation if the author is a
corporate one: nothing will enter the public domain until 2074.

Each copyright legislation is more restrictive than the previous one. A
major blow for digital libraries was the amendment to the 1976
Copyright Act signed on October 27, 1998. As explained by Michael Hart
in July 1999: "Nothing will expire for another 20 years. We used to
have to wait 75 years. Now it is 95 years. And it was 28 years (+ a
possible 28-year extension, only on request) before that, and 14 years
(+ a possible 14-year extension) before that. So, as you can see, this
is a serious degrading of the public domain, as a matter of continuing
policy."

John Mark Ockerbloom, founder of The Online Books Page in 1993, got
also deeply concerned by the 1998 amendment. He wrote in August 1999:
"I think it is important for people on the web to understand that
copyright is a social contract that is designed for the public
good--where the public includes both authors and readers. This means that
authors should have the right to exclusive use of their creative works
for limited times, as is expressed in current copyright law. But it
also means that their readers have the right to copy and reuse the work
at will once copyright expires. In the U.S. now, there are various
efforts to take rights away from readers, by restricting fair use,
lengthening copyright terms (even with some proposals to make them
perpetual) and extending intellectual property to cover facts separate
from creative works (such as found in the 'database copyright'
proposals). There are even proposals to effectively replace copyright
l